Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Space Madness Gets Extra Credits

This was an episode where I had to go back to Vanessa and ask if we could give more credits upfront. "Oh, John...This one time only!" was the response. Then later I did it again for a couple other episodes.

Original notes from lunch with Jim and John about space episodes above, then turned into a simple premise below:

I had to rewrite the "crazy talk" speech about 5 times to get Nick to approve something. This is one attempt

Jim Gomez wrote up a more detailed premise, then I fleshed it out to a long outline and went through many passes and revisions with Nickelodeon. It's a particularly long detailed outline or I would scan it to show you.

I wish I could find the notes where they told us to "drop the space episodes. We don't like space." Richard, do you have them?Jim designed the look of the future for the show studying old Popular Science pulp magazines and books about the Streamlined decade and 40s vacuum cleaner catalogues. The Spumco book will have lots of his art.

Chris did some great designs while he was storyboarding at the same time. He did the long vertical pan of the weird machine in the History Eraser Button room for one.Oh, and David Koenigsberg did the cool waving credits and fx at the beginning of the cartoon-the old fashioned way, under a camera with ripple glass!

Henry Porch picked out Dvorak's "New World" for the opening music, which lent the cartoon a very serious ominous atmosphere.

Bill Griggs did a phenomenal job editing the music and Tim Borquez killed himself coming up with all the cool old style science fiction sound effects.

Mike Fontanelli did the layouts of Ren and Stimpy at the end for the History Eraser Button Sequence. Maybe I have some frame grabs somewhere.

A lot of other good artists all worked on the show. A cartoon like Space Madness could never be made as an independent film - or even at another studio with all the same people. It took a lot of top talent, a production system designed for talent and a sympathetic creative director who urged the best from everyone - oh and a network executive who allowed it to happen. More than what we all thought we were capable of, I'm sure.

Pertaining to the little story about executives and the soap gag in Space Madness: when I first saw that cartoon (I was born in 1987, mind you, so I was pretty little), I KNEW that soap wasn't tasty. But I remember seeing the cartoon and thinking, "wow, maybe soap COULD taste good," because I liked the way it was drawn. I'll have you know that I tried it and was disappointed that it did not taste like it looked in the cartoon.

OH WOW. "Space Madness" is probably my absolute favorite Ren and Stimpy episodes. If I wasn't at the library, (heh) I would articulate my comment better and get a better look at your notes and outlines.

Besides some of the best examples of Ren's rubbery, spastic animations (especially when he has his soap), I love the post-modern science fiction-y backgrounds not to mention great use of the scary background music like "Night on Bare Mountain" by Mussorgsky immediately before Ren makes Stimpy guard the History Eraser button.

I wonder if Nick execs were as strict with the content in the 80's show "You Can't Do That On Television". I never watched that show much, but the little bit I saw when I was young had some gross out moments in it.

I think Nick was a little more lenient with "You Can't...", just because that was show that made Nick a success (they even stole the "YCDTOTV" color scheme and "slime" and adopeted it as their corporate identity). I recall that show had a lot of un-PC stuff in it that would NEVER be shown on Nick today

... Like the recurring jokes of the kid in front of the firing squad, the alcoholic dad, the bus driver that kept crashing the bus full of kids, the cafeteria cook that served the kids roadkill and vomit. They even had occasional blatant sex jokes and references. Any one of those things would have parents in an outrage these days (even though parents today probably grew up with that show).

some of the gags in the r+s adult party cartoons are so gross they are almost unwatchable. they make the awesome sick stuff you did at nick look disney-esque by comparison. i'm wondering what was your relationship with spike tv suits?

Haha, the history eraser button scene is the one thing that me and most of my boys to this day remember from the original seasons. The camera pan revealing the announcer standing there is one of the better sight gags, for reals.

John, I don't understand how this kinda stuff isn't possible in an independent project.

The only difference between the two seems to be that the "studio" (corporate) side gets a paycheck BEFORE the project is finished, while an independent production is taking the financial risk and putting their money where their mouth is. In an indie situation, you only get money if the project sails.

Burt Klein self produces his own independent projects and gets a Disney quality product without studios (argueable whether or not that quality is something to be admirable of, but the point is that he's doing "studio" quality work). There's lots of independent animators like Nick Cross, David Gemmill and David De Rooj who are doing indie projects where I personally think their current projects look better and are FUNNIER than 99% of studio stuff out there. The tough part about being indie is that you also have the burden of being your own legal, marketing, merchandising, etc. But if quality products are really what drives people to watch stuff, shouldn't all that stuff fall into place?

This addiction to the "studio" is weird to me. If you got your cartoonist pals together and all agreed to donate your time without promise of a paycheck, you guys could FINISH a project and effectively put your money where your mouth is. The technology available makes this VERY possible. I mean, you'd all have a lot more to gain financially if you were willing to take the risk on this capitalist venture and owned the project instead of some studio. I think you have so many awesome ideas and I'd like to see them realized.

So maybe rather the problem isn't really one of studios, but one of motivating people to put in the upfront sweat equity of working on a project they believe. How and where do we find people with that kinda motivation? Well, I think we'll see them popping up on the internet really REALLY soon, like we have with Nick Cross.

Oh! So cool! Historical reference work on the creation of SPACE MADNESS! You know, SPACE MADNESS is my all-time favorite cartoon. Hands down. Everything about that cartoon is hilarious. I started laughing as soon as it began and kept laughing until long after the end credits. It's just the most effective cartoon I've ever seen. Everything from the ridiculous suits to the maniacal screams of fear to the insane dialogue to the funny machines...

Hey John! I actually love the Adult Party cartoon!Space Madness was a such great Episode Never seen something such good animated the best Scene is the ''Soap Eating''Yummyyyyyy that was so delicious...uhm...i think so,ren liked it :D yeah Soap actually isn't that tasty how it smells lol.We would probably see a sequel in the APC show of Space Madness (''Space Madness 2'' or something) if that bastards from Spike wouldn't fire you & your'e Team >:(i really miss ren & stimpy and i can't wait for that ''ultimative dvd set''cause ''life sucks''sooo hope you can make one day new episodes of r&s :D Good bye.

I know you don't think we're worthy, but could you some day do a post on what to expect when pitching a show and how to talk to executives?

I know I'm not good enough to be the creator of a new show, but I am young, hip and disheveled. Worse case scenario a hipster gets into the system under the radar then suddenly starts hiring the right people.

Wait. That will never work. The baby boomers tried that whole 'rebuild the system from the inside' crap and it never worked.

Hey John! You have talked alot about the process of making a cartoon, from writer to ink and paint... And you talked about NOT tone a drawing down, cause it's not cool when you're part of the process is toned down by the next on the ladder... Could you explain in a post, how you could tone a drawing down, cause I'm not sure how you avoid doing that... I have some ideas but I would like to now for sure:)

Your too young too retire. And if you do too early I'll get really pissed and make everybody revert to stiff 70's stuff again. But if I someday get to work for you and I get to be yelled at then I'll be fine with a well deserved decision. Also Here is my Lesson 4 for the 100,00 dollar cousre. Sorry it's late, but now I've stolen all the lessons off the site and put them into little folders so I can finish them without the net. Later Sir.

Hey John, I've found a really interesting website you maybe interested in. It's about writing but not cartoon writing, writing in general and I think it has some good information on breaking down the story in books and film. I figure that if we study novels and film and animation then we could shift between mediums and learn a lot about what each one has to offer in the end to cartooning.

Here's the link. I'm planning on making a type of makeshift study guide for writing first and then one for music cause I think all artistic fields are lacking and could use some work, tell me if your interested.